Teahouse
by Relik
Summary: A collection of scenes and ficlets that never grew into full stories. A wide variety of genres. Come on in, have a seat, and let me tell you a tale...
1. Loss

**Teahouse**

* * *

**Title:** Loss

**Setting: **Bakumatsu, manga and OVA blend

**Characters: **Kenshin, Katsura, Tomoe

**Type: **One-shot

**Genre: **Drama, angst

**Word Count: **226

* * *

Katsura asked Kenshin: "Have you killed with the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu? Can you?"

And Kenshin replied that he could: "If, when I lay down my bloodstained blade, there is truly an era of peace…"

There was no discussion of the implication of his words. No acknowledgement that there was still the question of whether Kenshin would still be _alive _to be able to lay down his sword at the end of it all. Perhaps Katsura only heard the answer to his question in the response, and not the words in between. Certainly Kenshin did not realize his words were naïve, the words of a thirteen-year-old who might understand death, but who has not fully acknowledged his own mortality.

He didn't know when it changed. When he lost the innocence clouding his mind. He just remembered Tomoe asking if he wanted something more, more than sleeping upright with a sword clasped to him. He remembered responding: "This is what has been given to me. Besides, I will not live long."

Somewhere between the slashes of his sword, somewhere in the oceans of blood he had spilt, he had realized that the world after the revolution… the world he was trying to help come to be with every life bled into the blade of his sword… would have no place for him.

He almost looked forward to it.


	2. Falling Slowly

**Teahouse**

* * *

**Title:** Falling Slowly

**Setting: **Meiji and Bakumatsu, manga and OVA blend

**Characters: **Kenshin, Kaoru, Enishi, Tomoe

**Type: **One-shot

**Genre: **Drama, supernatural

**Word Count: **1, 334

* * *

**Floor**

"It wasn't supposed to be like this." Kaoru watched the red creep across her dojo floor and outline the thin cracks between the smooth wood boards. It slid under her feet without a ripple.

"This isn't right," she said sadly. She stood several paces away from where her body slumped against the wall, pinned in place by a sword through her heart. She looked at the lethal wound, the blood that had saturated the cloth around it, and the pool that spread slowly out from under the body. With no heartbeat behind its movement, it trickled slowly across the floor at gravity's whim.

Her hand lifted to run fingertips lightly across her cheek, and she imagined she could feel the phantom wetness of blood upon it, a reflection of the wound carved into her corpse's face.

Her eyes closed. Enishi had cut the X into her skin while she was still alive, smiling happily into her face as she watched him with frightened and angry eyes. "This is a gift," he'd said. "For Battousai."

"He's stronger than you," Kaoru had whispered, refusing to shed the tears of pain that gathered in her eyes. "You'll never beat him."

"I don't have to beat him," Enishi had corrected her. "I just need to _break_ him."

"Kaoru-dono!"

Her eyes flew open, un-beating heart lurching in her chest. "Oh no."

Kenshin stood in the doorway, frozen. Kaoru could see every minute detail of his face as he looked upon her dead body. She saw disbelief and denial slacken the lines of his face, and the crushing anguish that swept all life and sparkle from his wide, bright eyes. His sword fell from nerveless fingers, and he took one more step inside before he followed it to the floor, knees cracking against the wood.

"Kaoru…" his voice was thread-thin, breathless with pain.

The tears she had denied Enishi burned Kaoru's eyes, and she covered her mouth with one hand. "Oh, _Kenshin_."

She was moving toward him before she knew it, but her comforting hand passed straight through his shoulder. She went to her knees beside him, hurting all over even though she could no longer feel anything.

"I'm so sorry," he gasped. "_Kaoru_."

* * *

**Choke**

Tears slipped down Kaoru's cheeks as she sat beside Kenshin's crumpled form. He was on his knees, back bowed, head low. She could just see his eyes through the fringe of his hair—flower-petal purple, and blank.

Her heart was breaking.

His hands were in his lap, palms up, fingers curled loosely. Kaoru reached out to touch the scarred skin of his wrist, but stopped with her fingertips hovering over the fragile flesh.

She wouldn't be able to touch him.

She was dead. She was dead, and Kenshin was…

Kaoru buried her face in her hands and let out one choked sob before regaining a tight hold on her control. Weeping would not help Kenshin. Weeping would not help anything. But she didn't know what would.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she whispered again.

"You are correct."

Kaoru sat up and twisted around, shocked at the unfamiliar voice. A woman stood behind them, dressed in a white kimono with a purple shawl. She smiled at Kaoru, a soft, sad smile.

"Hello," she said, "Sister."

Kaoru recognized her even though she had never seen her before. She offered her own, small, sad smile and said: "Hello, Tomoe-san."

Tomoe paced forward with smooth grace, her gaze shifting to Kenshin. Her expression shifted, too, but her dark eyes were unreadable and Kaoru couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"You are correct, Kaoru-chan," Tomoe said, attention moving back to the other woman. The affectionate address had Kaoru blinking back more tears even as she wondered at Tomoe's words.

"I don't understand," she said.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Tomoe said, with a small inclination of her head. "You were never supposed to die here."

"But… then…" Kaoru's brow furrowed.

"There were plans," Tomoe explained, "expectations for you… and for him."

Kaoru's eyes slid to Kenshin at the prompt. His eyes were closed now, and defeat was writ in every line of his body. She looked back to Tomoe, finding the other woman studying her expression.

"What will happen now?" Kaoru asked. She could accept that she was dead, but Kenshin was suffering and she could never accept that.

"That depends on you," Tomoe told her. "I am here to give you an opportunity."

* * *

**Love**

"I could go back," Kaoru repeated.

"Yes," Tomoe confirmed. Kaoru stared at her lap, running her fingers along a crease in her hakama. The offer was not anything she had expected, but then, she had not expected death to be quite like this, either.

There were stories about ghosts and restless spirits, but nobody really _believed _them. And yet, here she was, sitting beside Kenshin, her corpse against the wall across the room. Her eyes traced the line of Kenshin's bowed shoulders.

"Back to… to the revolution," she said, lips feeling numb. "Why? Why… then?"

"You were not supposed to die here. It has created ripples," Tomoe explained again, patiently. "To the future, in the present, even reaching to the past. They have not reached the time of the revolution, however. It is safest to send you there."

"Safest," Kaoru said, lips twisting. Tomoe inclined her head, acknowledging the irony of the statement. Kaoru's fingers smoothed over her thighs again.

"What about… What about you? If I go back then, won't that change what happens to you?"

Tomoe was silent a long moment, long enough that Kaoru looked up and sought out the other woman's gaze. "Tomoe-san? What will happen to you?"

"I thought you might ask," she said slowly, "though I had hoped you wouldn't. Kaoru-chan, do not worry about—"

"Please, tell me," Kaoru asked softly, her hands tightening over the fabric on her hakama. Tomoe paused once more.

"To give you this chance, I am giving up that life," she said finally. "I will not exist as I had."

Kaoru's head jerked up. "No! That's too—Why should you sacrifice—"

"I chose this," Tomoe interrupted her gently. "Do you understand? I want to give this to you, to Kenshin."

"I…I…" Kaoru forced out of a tight throat, "I… understand."

Tomoe nodded. "And your answer?"

Kaoru closed her eyes, but the specter lurked behind them, the spark of Kenshin's spirit snuffed, one too many tragedies smothering him, breaking him. There really was no choice to make.

"Send me back," she whispered.

* * *

**Cold**

Kaoru was at once hot and cold, burning in her own skin as cold rain sluiced down her face and stuck her clothes to her. She staggered, disoriented, and caught herself against a wall. Fingers flexing against the stone, she took a few halting steps, limbs feeling thick and heavy, spurred by some vague urgent sense. Pushing off the wall, she swayed, stumbling two more steps forward…

Something hot and wet struck her across her face and she flinched in reaction. It tasted of copper on her lips.

_Blood_, whispered something in her memory. _It is the taste of blood_.

She lifted her head, blinking rainwater out of her eyes until they presented her with the view before her.

Her breath caught in her throat. At the sound of her gasp, his head jerked up, water and blood dripping from his chin. His wide, wild gaze held hers and they both froze.

_Blood… Blood on my face, on his face. On the ground, the walls. On his sword… A body behind him, twisted, torn nearly in twain… Kenshin… you killed that man. You killed him…_

"You…" Kaoru gasped, and Kenshin flinched, grasp tightening briefly on the bloody blade in his hand… _You killed him. You're so young. You… You're here. _"You're… bleeding…"

Shock on his face, the sword clattered from his grip.

Kaoru's hand lifted, reaching toward his cheek.

The world swam, and she was falling, fainting.

The brief recognition of the warmth of his arms as he caught her…

_Kenshin_.


	3. Talons

**Teahouse**

* * *

**Title:** Talons

**Setting: **AU

**Characters: **Kenshin, Kaoru

**Type: **1/?

**Genre: **urban fantasy

**Word Count: **2,262

* * *

Kaoru heard the rocket just as she was pulling her dinner out of the microwave, and dropped the curry to the floor as she lunged for the binoculars sitting on the desk. Hustling to the huge, wrap-around windows of the Watchhouse, she lifted them to her face and started scanning.

The rain made it hard to see exactly what was going on out there, but she did see a thin plume of smoke rising from the thick canopy a few miles out. A line of trees close to it shook with more than the wind.

Kaoru cursed and slammed the binoculars down, sprinting for her equipment.

Poachers. Oh hell, no. Not on her watch.

Kaoru yanked the door shut behind her and vaulted over the banister to the ground next to the Watchhouse's Jeep. She floored it almost as soon as the engine had growled to life.

That the poachers had used a rocket suggested they were hunting big-game. A gryphon, maybe, or a bakeneko. Possibly a jormungand, though in this weather that was somewhat unlikely. It was something big, anyway. A rocket and an angry Legend; the destruction would be… Well, they'd probably planned this to coincide with the storm, which would cover at least some of the explosions.

Kaoru veered around a sharp corner, dodging fallen branches on the rough dirt track, and tried not to think about what she would have to do if she was too late and they had already killed something.

She stomped on the brakes and froze, straining to listen. She thought she'd heard…

Yeah, there it was again, rapid gunfire. Damn, whatever they were hunting must be putting up quite a fight. Lips thinning, Kaoru switched off the Jeep's headlights and drove more carefully down the road. With any luck, the poachers would be too preoccupied with their prey to hear her approach.

At least the storm would also help her with that. Even if it was making the road nearly unbearable with mud.

All at once, Kaoru felt a shiver down her spine that had her slamming her foot down on the brakes again and ducking low in the Jeep's seat. A dark shadow burst from the forest ahead of her, streaking a short way up the road before crashing through the trees on the other side.

Damn, it was big! And she still wasn't quite sure what it was; the rain had intensified and the intermittent lightning flashes weren't doing much to light up the forest under the canopy of the trees.

She heard the poachers, shouting, whooping, cursing, crashing through the brush after the creature. Kaoru scrambled for a smoke grenade and her semi-automatic and managed to pull the pin and lob the grenade just as the first of the bastards reached the road.

With a pop and a hiss, thick acrid smoke billowed, obscuring the poachers' sight and stinging their lungs and eyes. Kaoru swung her gun around and shot off a full clip into the cloud. The rubber bullets would hurt, wherever they hit, and hopefully prevent the poachers from returning fire with their much more lethal real bullets.

Kaoru slung the gun's strap over her shoulder and pulled her bokken from its sheath across her back, leaping out of the Jeep and running—low and soft-footed—into the boiling chaos of the smoke and flailing poachers.

They got some shots off, but in the wrong direction, and Kaoru was no rookie. She laid out four of them in minutes, stretching her senses out into the dissipating smoke for any others.

Two left, unless they had a bloodwitch with them for back-up. But if she hadn't been hit with a hex yet, it was probable that they didn't.

Kaoru slid around the last two, probing, watching. One was new, and nervous, twitching around at every sound, having heard his comrades get taken down one after the other. A pistol was clutched in his hand, but he was apparently too nervous to see he'd already run out of bullets.

The other was experienced. It showed in the cold, calm way he scanned his surroundings. He also had a Kalashnikov, held level and steady. He would be dangerous; he should be her first target.

Kaoru slid her bokken back into its sheath and dropped her hand to the standard-issue pistol strapped to her thigh. The safety was thumbed silently off, but he was close enough to hear it when she chambered a bullet. So she waited, poised, and then when lightning flashed—close, so close—she took aim and—

Several things happened at once, and only afterwards could she line them up chronologically.

The lightning washed them in harsh white, just as the poacher was turning toward Kaoru. He saw her, and she saw him, and his eyes narrowed, the muzzle of his gun swinging around…

Her gun clacked, bullet chambering, as thunder rumbled. Her pistol remained steady even as her body twisted, seeing him aim toward her…

Nearly simultaneous muzzle-flashes as they fired…

Kaoru hissed as his bullet tore a trail of fire across her arm, but kept steady as she slid her aim a little lower and fired again. Her first shot hit his hand where it cupped the Kalashnikov's forestock. His gun jerked up at the impact, opening his body for her second shot, which hit him in the soft flesh of the gut. He dropped the gun, and doubled over, winded and deeply bruised by the rubber bullets. Kaoru shoved the pistol into its holster and grabbed her bokken once more. One furious, surgical strike toppled him, the arm without the bruised hand broken.

She turned on the newbie poacher, then, to find him trembling with his hands in the air. His gun lay on the forest loam beside him.

"I surrender!" he yelped as Kaoru stalked toward him.

"Good," she snapped. "Don't move."

He got cuffed first, and left shivering in a puddle on his knees. Kaoru made her rounds, jerking limbs around behind her catches' backs, entirely unsympathetic when they moaned with the pain of their broken bones. They deserved every bit of pain they got.

Even though even the smallest Legend could fetch millions on the black market for its fur, or bones, or heart, or whatever, most people never even considered hunting them. The reason was simple: Legends cursed you when you killed them. Nobody sane was going to risk hunting something that would kill you right back. But poacher cartels kept bloodwitches and Necromancers on retainer, magic-users who could twist them shields that would deflect a Death Curse. _Poachers _didn't have to worry about dying from a Legend's curse, not if they held one of those spells.

But the deflected curses were not powerless; they didn't just disappear. They hit other people, innocent people, instead. Poachers were killers two times over.

Kaoru winched the cuffs tight around the last poacher's wrists and straightened. Six criminals of the lowest sort, and a pile of the equipment she'd stripped off them. Not bad for a night's work.

After making sure none of them would be moving even an inch from where she'd put them, Kaoru went to the Jeep to grab her radio. Propping her hip on the passenger seat, she reached across to turn the keys and flip on the headlights again. The high-beams cut through the darkness, slashing light across the very-much-worse-for-wear poachers and the road.

Hand hovering over the Jeep's built-in radio, Kaoru cursed.

Whatever they had been hunting… they'd injured it, maybe even fatally. There was a bloodtrail where it had crashed through the forest and across the road—dark crimson spattered and mixing with rainwater in the puddles.

"Dammit," Kaoru said again, angry. She stabbed her finger at the controls of the radio.

"Base, this is Warden Zulu Tango Niner, come in Base, over."

The radio crackled to life. "This is Base, go ahead Warden, over."

"Base I need pick up, six cuffed for a Three-One-One, over."

"Roger, Warden Zulu Tango Niner, sending in a team for pick up, six cuffed for a Three-One-One. We have your position marked, over."

"Roger that, Base. Perpetrators have injured their target, request permission to track and recover, over." Kaoru stared at the blood, startlingly red in the Jeep's headlights. It took longer for Base to reply this time.

"Permission granted, Warden Zulu Tango Niner. Be careful. Base out."

Kaoru hung the mike back onto its peg and turned to wrestle the first aid kit out of its storage console. Depending on what kind of Legend it was, there was a chance she could persuade it to let her treat its wounds.

…If it was still alive…

And as long as she left her guns here. Legends tended to respond violently to the sight of the things. But at least she could keep her bokken, which the smarter Legends recognized as non-lethal, and the stupider ones merely saw as a big stick.

Kaoru locked her pistol and semi-automatic into the locker fixed above the Jeep's back bumper. Then she slung the first aid kit over her shoulder, grabbed a flashlight, and started following the bloodtrail.

It was dangerous to go after an injured Legend like this. While Legends generally could read intent, and knew to not maim or kill Wardens that only wanted to help, sometimes the pain of their wounds was too much and they…

Well, it wouldn't help anybody to dwell on such things. She wasn't going to die; boss would be pissed if she died before writing her report.

There were very few broken branches along the Legend's trail, which surprised her. It had _looked _fairly large when it had zipped in front of her Jeep, but she would have expected more damage to the trees and underbrush for something that size. Maybe she'd overestimated… Or maybe it was very agile. A snake-formed Legend might have been able to wind itself around the trees without much collateral…

Kaoru froze as something nearby gave a great warning huff of breath, like an angry horse. She hadn't sensed it, and she'd been wide open, trying to find it. Could it hide itself?

Slowly inching forward, she paused as something behind the brush to her left shifted, rustling leaves.

"Hey there," she said in her best soothing voice. "Hey there, easy; I'm not going to hurt you…"

Easing a branch out of the way, she lifted her flashlight and swept the light over—

Kaoru went rigid and nearly dropped the flashlight.

—a long sinuous body, red as blood with an opalescent sheen to every scale, a wild mane of hair that drifted in the air as if with a life of its own, huge golden eyes… even huger claws, dangerously curved and tipped in gold…

"Holy shit," said Kaoru.

It was a goddamned dragon. A _dragon_. Nobody had ever seen a dragon before. Well, outside of drawings of them in books. Everyone had assumed they were extinct, or had never even existed. Which, all things considered, was a little foolish maybe, but if there were dragons out there flying about and eating dragon-sized dinners and… and doing dragon-y things, wouldn't _somebody _have noticed?

"Holy shit," Kaoru said again, dazed. "You're a fucking _dragon_."

Then she blanched. "Oh my god, they were trying to kill a dragon." Her eyes widened. "Oh my _god_, you're bleeding."

There was a gash down the side of the dragon's wolf-like muzzle, and the end of its tail was tipped with the sad, charred remains of a lion-like plume—_the rocket_, Kaoru realized_, it only just missed him_. A deep wound marred the smooth beauty of its left shoulder.

She looked nervously from the dragon's gleaming eyes to its claws, to the tips of its fangs, just peeking out from its upper lip. "Um," she said. Her voice cracked, so she coughed a little and tried again: "Um. Excuse me, honored sir. I apologize greatly on behalf of my race for the actions of the men who hurt you. I have apprehended them and they will face judgment for their crimes. Though it is but a small gesture, please, permit me to treat your wounds."

Speech finished, Kaoru gingerly held out the first aid kit for inspection and bowed low, as she had been trained. With any luck, dragons were of the intelligent faction of Legends.

There was a long silence, as Kaoru tried not to think about how vulnerable she was, tender neck bared and unable to see what the dragon was doing. Her arms started trembling a little from holding out the kit.

Finally, there was a soft, slithering sort of sound, and Kaoru peeked up through her bangs—

—and jack-knifed upright, because the dragon was _twisting _and… and _shifting _and…

And there was a man, suddenly, where a dragon had been. A slim man, not too tall, with hair as red as the dragon's scales had been, a simple, elegant katana clasped in one hand… Blood trickled down his chin and the pale skin of his left arm. Kaoru's eyes flicked down without her consent, and nope, no more tail, but oh jeez, he was very naked… She jerked her gaze back up to his face just in time to watch his golden eyes melt into deep purple.

"Agh-g-g-gawha?" Kaoru said. _Kaoru-dot-exe__ has stopped responding._

The dragon… man… thing tilted his head, and said carefully: "This one would be grateful for your aid, so I would."

_He's a dragon. I saw a dragon. Dragons exist. A dragon turned into a man._

"Holy _shit_," Kaoru said.


	4. The Hostage

_Author's note: I'm grateful for the positive responses I've gotten on these ramblings! Especially _Talons_._ _The idea of dragon!Kenshin has always delighted me. I think it is likely there will be more '_Talons'_ scenes in the future; but since I still cannot find a plot to string together a full story, they're likely to be just little snippets. Anyway, enjoy this next one-shot._

* * *

**Title:** The Hostage

**Setting: **AU

**Characters: **Kenshin, Kaoru

**Type: **One-shot

**Genre: **action, scifi

**Word Count: **2,693

* * *

Kenshin called the team to attention when his commanding officer strode into the briefing room. With a quick clatter of chairs, the elite, hand-picked team of five stood, eyes forward, chins up.

"At ease," the general said, and they sank back into their seats. Kenshin remained standing off to the side, as was his place as first lieutenant and the leader of this small group, but relaxed into parade rest.

He hadn't expected a general to be the one giving this briefing; that such a high-ranking officer was making it his business to brief the team on this mission meant that the hostage they were going to extract was high-profile.

That Kenshin's orders had called him to pick only five of his best told him that it was a politically sensitive hostage situation. He listened intently to the general, curious as to what this mission would be about.

The general called up the holo-screen but left it on its default home screen—a rotating image of the Earth Defensive Force Special Division's crest. He cleared his throat, looking out over them.

"This mission is highly classified," he told them. "That Lieutenant Himura has selected you five means that he trusts you to understand what that means. Since Lieutenant Himura has an exemplary service record, I trust him to know his people. Because of that, I will not stress the matter over-much. However, I will say this: This mission," here he brought a finger down on the manila folder on the platform in front of him, staring at them and pausing a moment for effect, "is not something you will be at liberty to speak of even to your buddies at mess. Even between _yourselves_ once the objectives have been met. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," chorused the team, their curiosity evident in the sidelong glances they shot at each other.

"Very well," said the general gravely, then punched a button on the holo-screen's controls. Two iDents popped up, the shoulders-up 3D models of an older man and a young girl slowly rotating as the text beside them burned bright and steady.

Kenshin felt his eyebrows rise as he recognized the man immediately, without having to read the particulars.

"Koshijirou Kamiya," the general said. "Senator of the East Asia District. His private home was attacked early this morning by extremists from the Neptune colonies. He was one of ten Earth Senators targeted in a set of concurrent attacks. The other nine were thwarted by local district law enforcement, but there were mitigating circumstances in Mr Kamiya's case. While he was successfully evacuated from the premises, his daughter was not."

There was a startled silence from the Special Division soldiers, Kenshin included. He hadn't been aware that Senator Kamiya had any children, let alone a daughter.

Kenshin looked more closely at the iDent of the girl. She was maybe twelve. Long black hair cut with bangs, large blue eyes that seemed to stare warily out of the model capture. There were hints in her father's features in hers.

"Kaoru Kamiya," the general said. "Age fourteen. She is her father's only child from his marriage to a Martian colonist called Jubilee, no last name. The mother died soon after the birth, but the daughter survived. Mr Kamiya controls who is aware of his daughter's existence very strictly due to the… unique abilities she inherited from her mother."

Kenshin was about to have a conniption in the corner. Kamiya hadn't just kept the fact that he had a daughter under wraps; nobody had known that he'd been married either, or that he was in any way involved with Jubilee. She didn't have a last name because she didn't need a last name; there was only one Jubilee of the Mars colonies.

And if her daughter inherited her 'unique abilities'…

God damn, she was a precog. And if she was Jubilee's daughter, she was probably a strong one.

"Sir?" one of the team raised a hand in the dazed silence. The general nodded. "Sir, if the girl is a precog, why did she allow herself to be captured?"

"Mr Kamiya was drugging her to suppress her abilities," the general replied. "In fact, Mr Kamiya had not registered Ms Kamiya as a precog or even as his daughter. Her whole existence was a secret. Until now. Mr Kamiya judged it better to let the government know about her so that we would be invested in extracting her."

There was a definite note of disgruntlement in his voice. Kenshin couldn't blame him. They were being used. Kamiya had kept his daughter secret from the government, when he knew that precogs were required to be registered by law, until he needed the government to save her from terrorists. But Kenshin couldn't blame Kamiya either; the reason it worked was because the government was greedy for precogs, who could be used to navigate the tricky waters of the future. The government wasn't going to leave a valuable resource like Kaoru Kamiya in the hands of terrorists. But after she was saved… she'd become a ward of the government, as was the law. Her father would lose her one way or the other.

Kenshin's brow furrowed and stayed that way for the rest of the briefing.

* * *

The stealth ship breezed over the mountains like a shadow, carrying Kenshin and his team toward their target. Inside, his people were quiet, checking and rechecking equipment, poring over maps of the building, or the details of the terrorists. Malek was praying, as he did before every mission.

Kenshin sat with his arms crossed over his chest (and the thick armor over his chest and the various gear strapped there, too), running scenarios in his mind. From the information they'd been given, he had constructed a base plan for the extraction, but if any of the elements he'd assumed while forming that plan changed, he needed to have alternatives.

"Lieutenant Himura, we're five minutes from the dropsite," the pilot let him know. He acknowledged and pulled himself standing. His team looked to him.

"We're five minutes out," he said. "Do a final buddy-check then line up for the drop."

Kenshin checked Malek's kit over before he returned the favor. Malek, a sergeant and the next in command after Kenshin, grinned at him, a flash of teeth in a dark face. "You're all set, sir."

Kenshin nodded, as the pilot's voice came back to him over his mic again. "Coming up on the dropsite."

The ship slowed before halting completely, hovering over the dropsite silently. When the light next to Kenshin's head turned green, he flashed some hand signals at his people. The lights in the cabin went out, and they slid their goggles over their faces. There was a slight hiss as the door opened, and some very quiet rustlings as the soldiers threw out their cords and began rappelling out the side of the ship.

As soon as Kenshin's feet hit the ground, he detached his cord and ran, low and silent, toward the copse of trees that bordered the Kamiya property.

Intel had shown that the Neptunian terrorists were running a regular patrol around the perimeter every half hour; Kenshin and his team had dropped within the five minutes after the patrol had passed their position.

The terrorists were amateurs. The only reason they had managed to capture Ms Kamiya was because nobody had known she would be there. It was pure accident.

But that didn't mean it wasn't dangerous. Any hostage situation could easily turn deadly, and the terrorists, though poorly trained, were well-armed. Kenshin scowled, remembering the briefing on the firepower these extremist jerks had.

Somebody had been arming them. It didn't take a genius to know it had to have been one of the Purist parties; the conditions for Ms Kamiya's release included the demand that all negotiations with the Centauris be cut off.

It might have been a powerful demand, if the other nine abductions had succeeded.

It was both fortunate and unfortunate that they didn't know Ms Kamiya was a precog. If they knew, they probably wouldn't be trying to ransom her. Since they didn't know, they were sticking to their demands. However, since they likely knew their other attempts had failed, they would also know that the demands were foolishly high for the return of a girl nobody had known existed, and that might make them desperate.

This situation had all the makings of a cluster-fuck. Kenshin knew it, his team knew it, and the brass knew it.

But he and his people were the best.

They ghosted across the lawn, picking through a tastefully traditional garden, and reached the outer wall of the house. Kenshin signed a few orders to the others, and waited at the two specified men disappeared around corners. Within two minutes, they were back, and signed back to him the locations of most of the terrorists. There were two holed up on opposite sides of the house with powerful automatics, one in an upper room with a rocket-launcher, five that kept changing locations within the house in apparent patrols, and one guarding the girl in a room upstairs, down the hall from the rocket-launcher.

Kenshin nodded; that fit with the intel they'd been given. He signaled two of his best climbers—both, incidentally, women—to split off with him. The three of them would scale the wall and secure the hostage, while the others got into position to take out the terrorists. Once Ms Kamiya was secured, they would execute their orders and eliminate the hostiles.

Up they went, silent as spiders, finding the room where the girl was being held with ease. Kenshin gestured to his teammembers, slipped up his goggles, and then slowly eased around the window sill to peek inside.

Within, the room looked like a typical young girl's room—posters of popular music groups plastered the walls, ranging from a bubblegum-pop idol to a death metal band Kenshin recognized from the European District. The bed was covered in fluffy stuffed animals. The girl was on the floor beside the bed, sitting upright. Kenshin stared.

She was sitting on the chest of a very unconscious terrorist, a wooden sword across her knees. There was a goose-egg the size of a golf ball on the terrorist's head. The girl was directly facing the window, and waved cheerfully when she saw Kenshin.

He fought the urge to rub his eyes and look again. As he stared incredulously, the girl stood up and came to the window. She opened it—the sash moving as smoothly as if oiled—and smiled at him.

"You can come in; he was the only guard with me," she said. "And the others won't check in for another five minutes."

"You shouldn't have attacked him," Kenshin told her, even though he climbed through the open window. "The others might have heard you, or he might not have been knocked out."

She rolled her eyes so hard it was nearly audible. Behind Kenshin, Beckerman snorted a laugh as she came through the window, likely finding it hilarious that this little girl was sassing her boss. "At eleven twenty-three and fourteen seconds one of the others knocked my daddy's Ming vase off the side table in the living room. I hit him then, so they wouldn't hear him fall. And I _know _how to knock someone out."

Kenshin rubbed his forehead. Koshijirou Kamiya had been kendo champion of the East Asia District seven times in his life. And there were all kinds of legends about Jubilee. Of course their kid would be… this.

"The two person patrol that goes around the garden will leave in thirty seconds," Kaoru said. "The other three who are moving around the house will all be in the kitchen in two minutes, and the east-facing machine-gunner is getting up to go to the bathroom."

Kenshin blew out a sigh, but keyed the mic at his throat. Usually his team only communicated with hand signals, perfectly silent, but with distance and walls between them, the wireless was necessary. "Cut in from the east and take the kitchen first. We'll take the package out over the roof toward the north."

He turned to Kaoru, looked at her bare feet, and said: "I'm going to carry you."

He glanced at Beckerman and Walker, "Cover."

Kaoru shifted when he slung her over his back, neatly tucking herself against him to balance perfectly. She clung to him like a monkey, but didn't foul up his range of motion. He was more grateful than he could express for her practicality and cleverness. The number of times he'd nearly been shot because whomever he'd been rescuing had tearfully draped themselves over him…

He keyed his mic again. "Go in five, four, three, two, one. Go."

The still night erupted into motion and action. Kenshin and the others were already clear across the roof by the time the first shots rang out, a swift popping one-two-three that Kenshin could tell from the sound had come from his team's guns.

Kenshin dropped from the roof to the ground, his boots absorbing the shock. Beckerman and Walker dropped beside him, each with their weapons raised and ready.

They'd just reached the treeline when Kaoru said: "Duck!"

When a precog told Kenshin to do something while he was in the middle of a mission with active gunfire, he obeyed without question. He dropped to the ground, rolling Kaoru under him so that anything that hit her would have had to get through his armor and him first. The tree in front of them exploded. The rocket-launcher.

"Walker!" he hissed.

"Got it," she replied, rolling over and sighting along her rifle. The gun barked once, and Walker coolly lifted her eye away from the scope. "Cleared, Lieutenant."

Kenshin got up. "Right, let's go. Rendezvous site is a mile that way."

Kaoru held out her arms as he turned to her and he scooped her up once more. They double-timed it to the rendezvous site.

* * *

The ship flew back to base smoothly, the gravity engine the merest hum. Kenshin's team sprawled across the cabin, relaxing after a successful mission. Kaoru curled in a seat, barefoot and in her pajamas, eyes flicking from person to person with bright interest in her eyes and a slight smile.

Kenshin draped a blanket over her and sat down in the seat beside her. She gathered the blanket under her chin and smiled fully at him. "You're all gonna get decorated for this."

Kenshin lifted an eyebrow. "I thought that you were given drugs to suppress your abilities."

"They don't work for very long," she said. "And I didn't take any all day."

The 'duh' was unspoken but clear as a bell.

Kenshin brushed his fingers over his mouth to hide his smirk.

When they reached the base, Kaoru's father was waiting with the rest of the 'welcoming' party. Kaoru flew into his arms with little regard for the smart, suited people waiting behind him—the Precognitive Institute's retrieval party. Kenshin grimaced mentally; the situation didn't sit right with him, and never had. It wasn't that precogs were treated poorly by the government—they were well paid for their work, and enjoyed extensive benefits—but… they weren't allowed choice in the matter. A precog worked for the government in the Institute whether they willed it or no.

Kenshin didn't think the restriction would sit well with Spitfire Kaoru.

He turned to follow the rest of his team as they tromped inside to divest of their equipment, but was stopped when Kaoru called out to him: "See you later, Kenshin-san!"

He half-turned his head to reveal his smile, and lifted a hand in farewell as he passed through the door into the base. Whatever else she did, Kenshin was sure Kaoru would land on her feet. It wouldn't surprise him if she pulled off her mother's tricks and evaded her 'destined' position. Considering she was only fourteen now, she was likely to only grow in craftiness and power.

Kenshin stopped suddenly in the middle of the hall.

…Wait a minute. Had she said 'see you _later_'?


	5. Washbasin

_Author's note: Sometimes I think Kenshin's not just being helpful when he does the laundry. Sometimes I think it's an evolution of the obsessive handwashing we see from him during the Bakumatsu._

* * *

**Title:** Washbasin

**Setting: **the wandering years

**Characters: **Kenshin

**Type: **One-shot

**Genre: **angst

**Word Count: **270

* * *

Sometime during the ten years Kenshin had spent wandering to the far corners of Japan, he spent a winter snowed into a small town in the mountains. Kenshin didn't much like to stay too long in one place—it increased the chance of his past catching up with him—but time and the war had pushed the memories of mountain winters and deep snow out of his mind and he didn't think about it until he'd woken in the town's small inn and found the mountain pass buried under white.

He hadn't the money to pay for a room at the inn for the whole season, so he had worked out a deal with the proprietress to work for her while he stayed there. Chopping firewood, mending drafty doors, carrying heavy containers from the storehouse… He did much of the heavy work that she, a slight woman getting on in years, could not easily do herself.

Kenshin always made sure to take care of the laundry. The old woman's hands were gnarled with arthritis, the joints swollen and painful, and her back bowed and weak. Scrubbing clothes was beyond her.

He didn't mind. The laundry was a chore he enjoyed, and one that he was good at. He'd had lots of practice; he'd been washing his clothes since Shishou had found him and taken him as an apprentice. And after washing blood from his uniform nearly every night during the revolution, there wasn't a stain he couldn't get out of fabric.

And… maybe, if he washed enough clothes, he'd also finally be able to wash the bloodstains from his hands.


End file.
